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SummerSlam
SummerSlam is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, produced annually in August by professional wrestling promotion WWE. Dubbed as "The Biggest Party of the Summer", it is one of the original "Big Four" pay-per-view events of WWE (along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series). The inaugural SummerSlam took place on August 29, 1988 at Madison Square Garden in New York City and was broadcast via pay-per-view. SummerSlam has been touted by WWE as their second biggest event of the year after WrestleMania. From 2009 to 2014, SummerSlam remained exclusive to Staples Center in Los Angeles. In 2015, the event took place in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where it will return for the next two years. History In the 1980s, Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF)'s main competition in the professional wrestling industry was from the Charlotte based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) who was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). McMahon countered Jim Crockett's successful Starrcade closed-circuit television event, which began airing in 1983, by making the WrestleMania franchise. After WrestleMania III, the most successful professional wrestling pay-per-view event in history, McMahon created the Survivor Series franchise, which aired the same day as Starrcade '87 in November 1987. After defeating Crockett in the ratings, McMahon created the Royal Rumble, an event airing for free on the USA Network in January 1988, which set a ratings record for the network with eight million households tuning in to watch the event. In retaliation, Crockett created the Clash of the Champions event, which aired simultaneously with WrestleMania IV. WrestleMania IV garnered higher ratings, and not long after, Crockett filed for bankruptcy and sold his company to Ted Turner, who renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW). As the WWF continued to replace its closed circuit programming with pay-per-view programming, Vince McMahon added more pay-per-views to the lineup to capitalize on the success of his previous events. In addition to WrestleMania in March and Survivor Series in November, McMahon added a third pay-per-view for August, which he named SummerSlam. To keep the WWF from having a pay-per-view market monopoly, Turner began airing monthly WCW pay-per-views, and both companies began bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. SummerSlam became one of World Wrestling Federation's (and later World Wrestling Entertainment's) most successful events and one of the "Big Four" pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble. Those four events, along with King of the Ring, are known as the "Classic Five". The first SummerSlam was held on August 29, 1988 in Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 2002, WWE instituted a "brand extension", where the roster was split and wrestlers and pay-per-views were made exclusive to the RAW and SmackDown! brands; SummerSlam, WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series were the only four events involving wrestlers and matches from both brands. The 2006 event was the first to also include the newly made ECW brand. In 2007, all pay-per-views began once again involving talent from all three brands, until ECW was dissolved in 2010. Dates and Venues